On Friday 22 May at 17.45, Citizens for Justice and ActionAid, with funding from the Tilitonse Fund, are hosting a screening of the South African documentary Miners Shot Downfollowed by a panel discussion with the director, Rehad Desai, and the miner, Mzoxolo Magidiwana, who led the strike that resulted in the death of 34 mine workers. TA Mabulabo, filmmaker Michael Phoya and civil society representative William Nyirenda will also join the panel to discuss mining governance in Malawi and the use of film in advocacy.

The event will start at 17.45 at Crossroads Hotel Auditorium and admission is free. Zodiak Broadcasting Station will be airing the discussion live on radio and has partnered with the organisers to air the film on its television station.

The Miners Shot Down website provides the following synopsis for the film

In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days into the strike, the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. The police insisted that they shot in self- defense. Miners Shot Down tells a different story, one that unfolds in real time over seven days, like a ticking time bomb. The film weaves together the central point-of-view of three strike leaders, Mambush, Tholakele and Mzoxolo, with compelling police footage, TV archive and interviews with lawyers representing the miners in the ensuing commission of inquiry into the massacre. What emerges is a tragedy that arises out of the deep fault lines in South Africa’s nascent democracy, of enduring poverty and a twenty year old, unfulfilled promise of a better life for all. A campaigning film, beautifully shot, sensitively told, with a haunting soundtrack, Miners Shot Down reveals how far the African National Congress has strayed from its progressive liberationist roots and leaves audiences with an uncomfortable view of those that profit from minerals in the global South.